“I grew up as a witness to the intelligence of the waitress in motion, the reflective welder, the strategy of the guy on the assembly line.” I found this introduction sentence to be simple, and not very fancy, yet provocative. I found it interesting. What does he mean the “intelligence of a waiter at motion”? The “reflective welder”? The “strategy of the guy on the assembly line”? And how did he grow up as a witness to all these? Later in the reading I learn that his mother is the waitress, and the author clearly depicts how hard she worked. For the author and his family, during his years of being raised, if they didn’t work hard, they starved. This is hard to imagine now, isn’t it? Now the mindset is, “do anything and everything to get out of hard work.” Even people who are doing harder work in comparison to today’s world are not doing as much as they did in the past. Reading this made me feel grateful for the time and situation I find myself in now, as my family never has to struggle just to make enough to eat. I gives me insight to I realize how blessed I am, and how much I can take for granted.
The author states his concerns with the issues of careers labor having less attention in the nation. Elaborate technology and media is thought to be the new best thing, requiring higher education and skill set, along with more brain power. But does it take just as much though and expertise to do a blue collared job? I don’t know, and I’m slightly confused at this part.
He talks about what will be said later in the book, starting with intelligence and cognition. Intelligence is misinterpreted to where it is common to think of it as being a single unitary quality, “So if you’re smart, you’re smart across the board.” I am a witness to people believing this and I agree that this method is contested and I don’t believe this is how we should continue to judge people. It is usually thought that intelligence is partly inherited, however I would say it is only based on how hard you work. In school, at a job, or anywhere. When someone gets very good grades, instead of me thinking to myself “they’re smart,” I tend to say to myself “they must work really hard.” Thinking this way helps you see that you are just as capable of doing well as anybody else. If you fail to think this way, the outcome of your life is at stake, because if you just think that you can’t do anything about your intelligence, you won’t work as hard to better yourself and work to make more opportunities for yourself.
Throughout the reading, I did not come across something that I disagreed with. I liked the points that he makes, and the way he portrayed his thoughts in a way that still made me think about it, and not just automatically agree with him.
The author states his concerns with the issues of careers labor having less attention in the nation. Elaborate technology and media is thought to be the new best thing, requiring higher education and skill set, along with more brain power. But does it take just as much though and expertise to do a blue collared job? I don’t know, and I’m slightly confused at this part.
He talks about what will be said later in the book, starting with intelligence and cognition. Intelligence is misinterpreted to where it is common to think of it as being a single unitary quality, “So if you’re smart, you’re smart across the board.” I am a witness to people believing this and I agree that this method is contested and I don’t believe this is how we should continue to judge people. It is usually thought that intelligence is partly inherited, however I would say it is only based on how hard you work. In school, at a job, or anywhere. When someone gets very good grades, instead of me thinking to myself “they’re smart,” I tend to say to myself “they must work really hard.” Thinking this way helps you see that you are just as capable of doing well as anybody else. If you fail to think this way, the outcome of your life is at stake, because if you just think that you can’t do anything about your intelligence, you won’t work as hard to better yourself and work to make more opportunities for yourself.
Throughout the reading, I did not come across something that I disagreed with. I liked the points that he makes, and the way he portrayed his thoughts in a way that still made me think about it, and not just automatically agree with him.